Walker Percy Wednesday 111

There is a slight unpleasantness about doing a psychiatric consultation in a small general hospital. Here a psychiatrist is ranked somewhere between a clergyman and an undertaker. One is tolerated. One sees the patient only if the patient has nothing else to do.

*****

“Very interesting. Okay, okay. Let’s skip the metaphysics. You get into the prefrontal, you get into metaphysics. In any case it’s academic when it comes to managing her. ”

*****

A small matter certainly, especially in Louisiana, where name changes were commonplace to accommodate whatever nation prevailed. German Zweig and Weiss often became La Branche and Le Blanc. Le Blanc and Weiss have been known to become White. No one cares. I know a man named Harry Threefoot whose family changed their name from Dreyfus. From French-Jewish to Choctaw. Why? Who knows? And in Louisiana who cares?

*****

“You know, Doctor, you and I might just be the ones to achieve a meeting of minds over the old mind-body problem, that ancient senseless quarrel. What do you think?”
“Our minds might.”